Q&A: A Question About Racism
A Question About Racism
Question
Hello Rabbi,
When Donald Trump was running for president, he called many women insulting names (“looks like a dog,” “horse-face,” “crazy,” and many more besides). A lot of people called him a chauvinist, but his supporters who came to defend him said he wasn’t a chauvinist, because he talks that way about everyone. Simply put, that defense doesn’t hold water. After all, if there are two hundred in all, there are one hundred in one portion. Why is it better to call everyone insulting names than only women?
You wrote here https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%9E%D7%94%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%94-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%94%D7%A1%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%93%D7%94-%D7%9E%D7%92%D7%96%D7%A2%D7%9F
that racism as a negative value is not a worldview, but acting on the basis of a worldview. But what harms people is the action, not the outlook. If two people do the same act, one from racist motives and the other because he is simply evil, is the racist worse? Why?
Unlike Trump, Hitler and Stalin murdered millions—Hitler out of a racist ideology, and Stalin out of a communist ideology (and probably because he was evil). Was Hitler worse? Is racism added on top of the crime of his murder as well?
This reminds me a bit of the discussion regarding the prohibition of “You shall not covet,” according to the view that one violates “You shall not covet” only when one commits an additional prohibition as a result of it.
I definitely agree that racism is a very dangerous trait, and throughout history it has caused a great deal of suffering and death, but the same is true of communism.
I would be glad to hear your thoughts,
Thank you
Answer
I don’t accept the logic of the question. The question of what is ugly about racism and what harms people are two different questions. Pride too does not harm people, and yet it is still a reprehensible trait. In addition, you are conflating two planes here: when someone murders the whole world, that is evil. When someone murders only Jews because of racism, that is less evil from the standpoint of the murder, but more evil from the standpoint of the racism. These are two independent aspects.
Discussion on Answer
Not necessarily. Racist thinking that leads to action is problematic thinking. Musing about hypothetical possibilities may be a mistake, but not necessarily racism. When you are prepared to do something on the basis of that thought, it means you have truly adopted it. But even if the problem is the act, what is problematic about it is that it is an act driven by racist thinking, not the act itself. Meaning: not the murder, but the fact that you murder because of a racist attitude. Let me sharpen it further: a Nazi who murders because of his attitude toward Jews is worse than someone who thinks the same way but does not act on it. But the inferiority is not only because of the act of murder and the prohibition of murder; it is a worse form of racism. Note this carefully.
That also answers your second question, and your third comment as well.
Thank you for the detailed answer.
Just to make sure I understood—if there are two racists, Reuven and Shimon, and both separately decide that they want to kill someone of that race: Reuven succeeds and Shimon fails, but only as a matter of luck (Shimon missed). I assume that in such a case we would say that in terms of the evil of murder, Reuven is worse than Shimon (because murder is worse than attempted murder), while in terms of the evil of racism, both are equally evil, because both were prepared to murder as a result of their racism. Is that accurate?
Only partially. Regarding the racism, you are right, but regarding the murder, no.
I’ve already written here more than once that evil does not lie in the results but in the intentions. A person who tried to murder is, in my view, as bad as one who actually murdered. As for someone who merely thinks about murdering, there is no proof that he would actually do it, and so it is hard to relate to him as fully evil. If Elijah were to come and tell us that he really would have murdered in practice had he had the opportunity, then he is as evil as an ordinary murderer. That is with regard to the degree of evil. As for the punishment he deserves, one must distinguish between the reasons for punishment: a sanction for evil is due equally to all of them. As for deterrence, that is debatable; as for responsibility to repair the damage, that of course depends on the existence of actual damage.
And one more question. Let’s say there is an elderly kindhearted woman who is racist toward Black people. She decides to adopt ten children, and because she is racist, she consciously decides to adopt only 2 Black children and 8 white children. Every self-respecting lecturer at a liberal university would say that this is racism and that it is terrible. It also falls under your definition of racism, since it is racist thinking that leads to action. But I find it very hard to accept that there is evil here—at most, imperfect kindness. It is very important to me to make that distinction. A lot of people, especially liberals, throw around the word “racist” as though it were the most horrible thing in the world. It seems to me that we recoil from that word because of our history of antisemitism over the generations, and in the U.S. because of their past with slavery. But as I said, there are different levels of racism, and it is important to emphasize that if one wants to call someone racist. Do you agree?
I agree, but that belongs to the previous category. She is indeed more racist than he is, but on the other hand she is also more kindhearted than he is. It is like the comparison between someone who murders Jews and a mass murderer who kills indiscriminately. This is an evaluation along two independent axes, and there are no offsets.
I still haven’t fully grasped what you mean. After all, you said that racism as a negative value is not a worldview, but acting on the basis of a worldview. According to that approach, racism in itself is not the problem, but its result—unlike pride.
And regarding your second point, let’s say we’re trying to measure different levels of evil, from zero to one hundred. If a person murders the whole world, he has a level of evil of one hundred from the standpoint of murder, and zero from the standpoint of racist evil. A person who murders 6 million Jews has a level of evil of, say, 70 from the standpoint of murderous evil—but what would the level of his racist evil be? Is it higher than that of a person who hates all Jews, thinks they are an inferior race, but never harmed a Jew? After all, if you separate the evil of murder from the evil of racism, why shouldn’t we say that both are racist to the same degree?
And I have no problem with people being racist at that level, as long as it doesn’t express itself in harming me. I don’t even think I would call such a person evil.